Wall Street’s hopes for return to office dashed again by COVID

Wall Street’s push to refill office towers across the country has been derailed again.

This time it’s the highly transmissible omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus that’s forced executives to rethink their plans. A record 10 million people were diagnosed with COVID-19 in the seven days through Sunday, almost twice the pandemic’s previous weekly high, though weekly deaths continued to drop.

“Realistically, we do not foresee us all having a safe opportunity to be together in our offices until at least Monday January 31,” Jefferies Financial Group CEO Richard Handler said in a memo on Instagram. “We are encouraging everyone to work remotely unless there is a very good reason to be in our office.”

The country’s largest banks have been among the most aggressive in luring workers back to their desks, with many beginning that process last summer. But the push has come in fits and starts as new variants have developed and pushed cases higher.